Skiing Success

November 19, 2024

I'm not a big fan of the cold, but I do love to ski. Skiing has been one of my favorite activities for recreation therapy because the clients that I have worked with have learned so much. They learn a new recreation skill. They learn resiliency skills. They learn how to set small goals for themselves. They learn how to read mountain maps. Just lots of skills learned. I learned how to ski for my Therapeutic Recreation internship at the end of my undergraduate degree. I literally learned in just one day of training that all staff had to complete to be signed off by the company as able to ski while staffing the boys.

Cami and Brother on Ski Lift

I was interning at an all boys Residential Treatment Center (RTC) for adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). My internship included skiing and teaching boys how to ski. We had separated the boys into three groups, which later became four groups: never skied (later separated into two beginner groups), beginner/intermediate, and expert skiers. I worked mostly with the two beginner groups, especially since I had learned how to ski for my internship.

At the beginning of the ski season, we had our three groups, and we had multiple boys that were in the never skied group. So, we had a few people that were teaching the boys how to ski. One of the boys, I'll call Frederick, was terrified and yelling about how he was going to die. He would yell, "I'm going to lose control, and then I'm going to get to the bottom and run into the fire and burn to death!" Granted, there was a fire at the bottom of the hill, but we were on the bunny hill, it flattened out for quite a bit, there was a large sidewalk for people to access different buildings, large benches, and then the fire, which had a large ring of stone/concrete around it. So, there was no way for him to actually run all the way into the fire and burn to death. The bunny hill was also quite flat, so it took a while to get speed.

The main attributes we were working on during the skiing season were resilience and perseverance. And we had lots of little goals to help the boys achieve this and make it measurable. For example, we would have a goal that said, "Frederick will get back on the skis after falling at least five times during the session." Another could have been "Frederick will get back on the skis without swearing or yelling at staff at least five times during the session."

Every week, we would work with Frederick and the other beginners on the bunny hill. And each week, they would rate how they did on their goals. As the season progressed, the boys progressed in their skiing, and little by little the other boys split off into the second beginner group, leaving Frederick as the last boy in the never skied group. He continued to stay on the bunny hill. And he would scream less about running into the firepit. But he would scream, "Don't let go of me!" while we would ski backwards, holding his hands, and doing the pizza stop basically the whole way down.

Weeks continued with the "Don't let go of me!" And Frederick slowly would take runs down the bunny hill with a staff in front but not holding his hands. He progressed in the skiing and in not yelling. He progressed in not wanting to get on the skis at all to "let me try one more time." The next to last session, he went on the slightly bigger hill next to the bunny hill. He told me that I wasn't allowed to touch him. He went down the hill without anyone touching him or leading him down the hill. He told me that he was going to do it again. And he went down the slightly larger hill again.

Our season was supposed to wrap up the next week, and I asked him if he would go on the ski lift the next week to go down the longer hill. He said that he would and felt like he was ready now, but we time was up, and we had to head back to the RTC. Unfortunately, the next week there was an issue where we were unable to go to the ski resort, so I never got to take him on the ski lift. But the difference in how resilient Frederick became over the course of roughly 2.5-3 months was incredible. He was yelling less in school and walking himself through processes to help calm himself down when things weren't going his way. He was willing to try new things. He recognized more when he was catastrophizing and making an issue bigger than it really was.

My favorite thing about that internship was that I truly learned that brains are malleable. All people have thought processes or coping skills that they automatically go to because they have done it for so long that it's the easiest route to take for our brains. But as we make small goals and work on new processes, our brain makes those paths easier for us to take.

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If you are looking for snow gear to go skiing or snowboarding, or even just sledding, I have a few links below. I usually like to have leggings or thermals that I wear under ski pants. And then I wear lots of little layers on top. So I usually just get a waterproof "shell" for top and lots of little sweaters/jackets.